


I Was Wondering If

by parsnips (trifles)



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Birthday, Humor, Kissing, Legilimency, M/M, Misunderstanding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-11-05
Updated: 2004-11-05
Packaged: 2017-10-11 08:29:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/110409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trifles/pseuds/parsnips
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Severus Snape was by no means a man without humor."</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Was Wondering If

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted 11.5.04 for pornish_pixies's birthday.

  
Severus Snape was by no means a man without humor. He often found things _quite_ amusing, though those things were not perhaps humorous by most people's standards. This did not give him much pause; most people were fools and miscreants, and so it was completely understandable that his turn of thought did not fit with the majority of society's.

However -- and of this he was fairly certain -- very few people would find what the Potter boy had just uttered the least bit funny.

At length Snape said, "I would assume you were trying to make some sort of asisine joke at my expense, except I really cannot imagine even you sinking to such depths."

Potter had been staring at the ground up till this point, but at Snape's words he raised his head and took on a mulish expression. "I wasn't joking, sir. You can say no if you want, but it's not a prank and I don't want you thinking it is."

This was entirely irregular. "I will think what I want, Mr Potter," Snape said. He picked up that day's papers and stood. To speak further would be to invite conversation; to ask even the most obvious question was completely unthinkable. Snape exited his classroom, spelling his door shut behind him with a reassuring thud.

\---

"Professor," he said, and paused.

McGonagall looked over her cup at him. "Severus?"

"I expect to have uninterrupted silence this evening."

McGonagall quirked an eyebrow. "Do I offer congratulations?"

Snape scowled. "I mean to say that if your house wishes to celebrate the birthing of their local celebrity, they had better be quiet about it."

"Severus," she said, "if you're referring to Mr Potter, his birthday is months past. He was born in July. I'm surprised; I thought you," the _in particular_ was left off, "would remember that."

Of course. Yes, of course it was. "Nevertheless," he said, knowing it sounded weak, despising this shoddy effort.

The two of them returned to their tea.

\---

At dinner that night Snape watched the Gryffindor table with a peculiar steadiness. His behavior was remarked upon by student and faculty alike. Every whispered conference was scrutinized; every burst of laughter was stared down.

Some of the students thought it very brave when Harry looked right back at the potions master, and their respect trebled when it became clear that neither Harry nor the professor was going to back down. It was only when the headmaster asked Snape something did the gaze break, and then it was hardly a surprise at all when Harry left dinner early. After all, it was _Snape_ who he'd locked eyes with. Greasy, sadistic bastard. Make anyone lose their appetite.

\---

Potter stepped out of the shadows of the Slytherin corridor and said, "Look, turn me down, ignore me, punish me, whatever."

There was no one else present. Snape had left dinner early as well, though his reasoning for it was not entirely logical. "Go away," he said, and entered his personal rooms.

Potter walked in right after him, the impudent worm. "Not until I've gotten a proper answer from you. What _was_ that in the Great Hall, what were you--"

Snape slammed his door shut, interrupting Potter's harangue with a pleasant abruptness. "You have barged your way into my rooms," he said, "you have lied about the supposed reasons for your request, you have behaved disrespectfully toward a professor in a very noticeable manner, and you have the _temerity_ to demand anything from me?"

Potter blinked. His eyes were ridiculously feminine. "Lied?" he said.

"Trust you to pick the least important of the charges against you," Snape said. "Your birthday has already occurred; therefore, and _do_ correct my thinking if I happen to be incorrect, therefore you cannot possibly want what you say you want. Feel fortunate that I don't have the time to explain to the headmaster the reason for a year of detentions." He crossed his arms and turned the full power of his stare upon Potter. "Now get out."

He had been told in the past that when he was inclined, his stare could invoke a heady sense of discomfort upon whomever it was directed. Snape had learned to appreciate this ability, and used it as was necessary. For the second time in as many hours, however, Harry Potter stood immune. Potter looked right back at him, squinted, and a small smile began to form. He said, "I know I lied, Professor. I sort of thought I'd need an excuse. I _have_ been thinking about it since I turned seventeen, though. It's just taken this long for me to get up the nerve to ask." The smile had not become larger; it was of a brighter intensity. "But when you didn't mention it when we first talked... Have you been thinking about it, Professor?"

Yes, damn him, and asking about it too. Thank God he hadn't realized how much further Snape's madness had gone. Potter said, "There was more, you know. That I wanted to say. It didn't seem right then, when I thought I knew how you'd react. I thought you'd say no. I thought you'd laugh at me, or give me a detention, or, or maybe string me along and then say the joke was on me."

Snape's mouth was dry. "How do you know I'm not doing that this moment?"

Potter reached up and took off his glasses. His eyes were larger when they weren't hidden behind the frames, kelly green and thickly fringed, with eyebrows that had the smallest tilt to them. Potter squinted again and stepped closer to Snape. The lowest point of his scar was whitely visible above his brow. "Because I know you," he said. "I've been in your head. You'd be smug, or you'd have your hands behind your back. You wouldn't have warned me just now." Potter shook his head, and looked back at Snape wonderingly. "I think you don't know what to do."

That, at least, was incorrect. Snape slipped his wand from his sleeve and without pause cried out, "_Legilimens!_"

\---

_in this place, there were emotions, and there were images. interpretation was impossible at this stage. it was the ultimate of existence, a complete lack of linear time. even the concept of 'now' did not exist; there was no past or future, no comparison to make it clear._

_it was possible to block Legilimens, but not to lie to it. the idea itself was meaningless._

_the boy was stroking himself beneath the covers of his muggle bed, and he was thinking of a man with black, greasy hair. the boy was looking at the cards and chocolates provided by his friends, and thinking of time and age and circumstance. the boy was watching his professor, his professor, and his black robes were made of wool just like the boy's school blanket. the boy was rubbing himself against his blanket in the nighttime. the boy was seeing the bare skin at his professor's wrists. the boy was asking the professor if he might celebrate his birthday with him, perhaps with a game of wizard's chess. the boy was thinking SNAPE._

_touching, speaking, pulling, sucking, standing in his professor's rooms and thinking of nothing but kissing, marking, fucking SNAPE SNAPE SNAPE_

\---

Snape released the spell. Potter fell to the floor, gasping. Snape felt rather the same. The lie was not in the telling of the request; it was in the _reason_ for it. _It's my birthday, sir, and I was wondering if..._

Potter climbed slowly back to his feet. "You could have just believed me," he grumbled. It was a false sentiment; the boy was scared.

_The boy._ "That would have been... imprudent," Snape said. "As, I suspect, is this." With two steps he was standing before Potter, putting his hands at Potter's waist, touching, pulling, kissing. Potter's kiss was rather like his handling of a broomstick; fast, darting, and he liked to catch. It was different than in Potter's head. This touch had a past, it had a future; it most certainly had a _now_.

"You little fool," he murmured a moment later, skin and mouth and perhaps a smile, "ten points for not practicing your Occlumency."

  
END


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